Jack's Journal: Post Rapture
by Mewkey
Summary: One-shot. Several journal entries from Jack's POV concerning the reconditioning of the surviving little sisters as well as himself. Rated T for paranoia's sake.


Disclaimer: I don't own BioShock. You'd have to talk to 2Kgames about ownership rights. Also the first line or two of my story is what Tennenbaum says in the good ending to the game. So...I didn't write that. Just FYI.

This is written as a series of diary entries from Jack's POV after the end of the game. I suppose you could think of them as audio-diaries, but Jack had his voice altered at the end of the game to sound like a Big Daddy...so I don't know if he'd be making audio diaries lol. Anyway...this goes from stepping off the Bathysphere with the rescued Little Sisters 2 years into their future. Hope you enjoy. PLEASE LEAVE MUCHAS REVIEWS! Thanks for stopping by!

**04/30/2010**: I've made a few minor changes to this story. When I originally wrote this story, I had meant to have the first Little Sister who remembered her name be Masha (whose mother's audio diaries we hear in the game) but I couldn't remember her name at the time of writing. So I called her Misha. I've corrected this error and she's Masha again. I've also tightened up a couple sections and changed the spelling of Tennenbaum's name from "Bridgette" to "Brigid" to reflect the retconning 2K did with the spelling of her name in Bioshock 2. Ok, this intro is becoming longer than the story itself. Sorry. Enjoy!

* * *

_They offered you the city, and you refused it. And what did you do instead? What I've come to expect from you. You saved them. You gave them the one thing that was stolen from them: A chance. A chance to learn. To find love. To live. And in the end, what was your reward? You never said. But I think I know... a family…_

She was waiting for me on the surface, Tennenbaum. I don't know why. The way she had talked all through the nightmare…I figured she'd be staying down there. I figured she'd be watching Rapture burn as some sort of penance for what she had done. But there she was, smiling as I helped the first ten Little Sisters out of the Bathysphere. She even rode back down to hell with me to pull the other eleven out and up.

All the money Tennenbaum made down there bought us a house on the shore in New York, and is keeping us in clothes, food, and medicine while we try to recondition the Little Sisters. It's been frightening so far. I have to keep the dive suit on and stay close to them all the time or else they tend to become terrified. We leave sandbag dummies on the floor upstairs for them: Their conditioning is so strong they still feel the imperative to harvest ADAM even though the slugs are out of their bodies. When we first got the house, we would find the Sisters searching for "angels" to harvest. We came up with the sandbag dummies as a way to placate them until we can break the conditioning.

As for my own conditioning…well…I still follow orders. I'm trying not to think about it just now. I stay focused on my twenty-one wards. I don't think about the family I never had, or the conditioning that eventually brought me to Rapture.

**[~]**

We lost six of the weaker Little Sisters this month…the ones who had been joined with the slugs a long time before I got to them. Even though the serum Tennenbaum gave me separated their systems from the symbiotic slugs, they'd been dependant on the slugs for so long they just couldn't survive. Tennenbaum is afraid it's going to happen to almost all of them soon. She's working on another formula to try and rehabilitate their systems to function properly. It's slow going.

The good news is we're making good progress with their minds. We don't have to keep the sand dummies out anymore…the Little Sisters don't hunt for bodies to harvest. They're still not comfortable unless I'm around…in this damn dive suit. I can't even take the god damn helmet off unless they're all sleeping. Not that it matters whether I have the helmet on or off…I can't talk thanks to the voice box modification. All I can do is look at Tennenbaum and nod or shake my head…if I open my mouth to speak fear flashes in her eyes and she shivers. Damn you, Suchong…and damn you Tennenbaum. Don't think I've forgotten what you did to these poor little things.

**[~]**

We've lost another eight Sisters. We're fighting desperately to save these last seven. They seem healthier than the rest, and they're responding well to the formula Tennenbaum created. I don't think I can bear another death. I went through hell for these girls, and I can't help but feel betrayed when they can't hold on any longer. Then I feel guilty…

We had a breakthrough the other day. One of them remembered their name. Her name is Masha. She doesn't remember her family at all, but she remembers her name. I want to give the rest of them names, but Tennenbaum says if we leave them nameless it'll be easier for them to remember their own names. I don't think they'll ever remember their own names. Of these last seven Masha is the youngest. She'd only been a little sister for about a year before the war, which makes it a lot easier for her to remember her old life and who she was before the slug. The rest have been Sisters for 2 years or longer.

They all call me Mr. Bubbles. At first it was horrifying. The longer I stay in this suit though, the more I begin to like the name. It's…a comfort. Christ, the longer I stay in this suit the more I feel like I'm losing my identity…like I'm losing myself.

Not that there's a whole lot of me to lose. When you think about it, I'm not much older than a couple of these Little Sisters. I have all these god damn memories…twenty some years of them…and they're all fake. They're all fucking fake…put there by the man who made me. I hope to hell we can get the Little Sisters taken care of soon so Tennenbaum can start working on me…I can't take being a Guardian much longer.

**[~]**

Brigid decided we can stop on the Sisters for the time being while she works on getting my voice back. She thinks she's broken enough of their conditioning that they'll be comfortable even if I'm out of the dive suit. She doesn't know it, but I've been experimenting with taking my helmet off around the kids. They seem fine with it. Masha even plays with the helmet while I have it off.

Brigid finally saw things my way about the names. We sat up one night and came up with them all. Every time I would write a name down for her to consider she would look at me sadly for a moment…I think she feels guilty about my voice. Maybe that's good. Maybe that's part of her penance for losing her humanity. Maybe that's the price of getting her humanity back.

I suppose I should record that we named them Lily, Barbara, Audrey, Katherine, Rosalind, and Julie.

Brigid is having me inject small amounts of EVE into my system to keep up on my plasmids. She's afraid Splicers are going to come bubbling to the surface sometime soon. If they do, I'm our best line of defense. In a way I'm happy to do it. If those Splicers got to the mainland there's no telling what might happen. But I'm still just a damn tool. Don't I serve a God damned purpose other than to be a tool for other people? Can't I just be a God damned human being?

**[~]**

Got my voice back today. I don't know how Brigid did it, but I'm grateful she did. The kids are a little shocked by it, but they're not scared. Now that my voice is back I finally got to take the God damned dive suit off. The kids were curious about it. They played with it for a long time.

Brigid still won't let me take a shower. Disgusting…considering how much sweat, Splicer blood, sea water, dirt, grime, and Big Daddy pheromone I'm covered with she should let me shower three times a day for the next month. She's afraid taking away the suit, voice, and smell all at the same time will send a couple of the older girls into a psychotic episode. Barbara and Julie, the oldest girls, still sleep with their ADAM syringes. If any of them would go crazy it would be those two.

The kids are starting to act like normal kids. They play games; they make up songs and dance with each other. I've started trying to teach them things like math and reading. They work with Brigid for half the day and me for half. They're doing well. We've got a lot of catch-up to do if we're going to send them to school. Brigid seems to think we're going to keep them here and teach them ourselves. I'm not going to let that happen. Now that they're out of that nightmare, I want these kids to have the most normal life they can. That includes school.

**[~]**

Brigid took the kids to the beach today. They've been working so hard they deserved a break. I stayed home and finally took a shower. No more Big Daddy stink. It was wonderful to finally and completely wash Rapture off me. I watched it swirl down the drain…a fitting end to the city under water. I must have stood under that scalding hot water for hours. I stayed in there until the water ran ice cold, thinking about my life. I figure I'm about five years old chronologically. In my head, I'm something more like twenty-nine or thirty. I don't seem to be aging rapidly now, so whatever that nutcase Suchong did to me when I was a baby apparently only worked until I was a certain size. I still wonder exactly what Brigid had to do with my conditioning.

Things went bad when Brigid brought the girls back from the shore. I was laying in the grass in front of the house when Masha and Lily ran up to me. They dumped a couple pounds of sea shells in my lap, laughing, and started showing me each one in turn. Just like normal kids showing daddy what they did all day. Audrey, Katy, and Rosie were a little more hesitant with me, but after a few minutes they were as animated as Masha and Lily. Julie and Barbara stayed away from the rest. They kept looking around and sniffing the air…no doubt looking for "Mr. Bubbles" since I no longer smelled of Guardian. Barbara just looked curious, but Julie looked hunted. She was terrified. I left the others with their shells and walked slowly over to Julie to try to talk to her, but it was like she couldn't see or hear me.

Brigid knelt next to Julie to comfort her and Julie ran screaming into the house. Barbara moved like she was going to follow Julie, but hesitated when she saw my face. Brigid ran into the house after Julie while Barbara and I looked at each other. Finally Barbara smiled and said "Jack." Barbara was ok.

Not so lucky with Julie. By the time I got the rest of the girls into the house with me, Julie was crying on the floor next to the old Dive suit. I don't know why, but Brigid and I had left it intact when I took it off the last time. Now Julie was trying to climb into the empty suit's lap, sobbing. She kept saying what they all had said after I had killed the Guardians watching over them: "Why won't you move, Mr. Bubbles?" I fell to my knees, tears springing to my eyes. Brigid was kneeling next to Julie, trying desperately to talk to her…to tell her who she was…to remind her she wasn't a Little Sister anymore. It was too late.

Julie sprang up and grabbed her ADAM syringe. When she turned to face me, her eyes had a yellow film over them…like they had when she still had the slug in her. The film reflected the dim light in the room, making it seem like her eyes were glowing. Brigid saw what she was going to do before I did. Julie leaped toward me, brandishing the syringe like a sword. I was too shocked to move. The other kids screamed, and Brigid was able to grab Julie around the waist just before Julie got me with the syringe. Julie struggled with Brigid, screaming for Mr. Bubbles.

Masha and Lily were trying to get me to move when Julie screamed it. She said "I have to help Mr. Bubbles! Help him!" It triggered something in my brain. Without thinking about it, I stood up and went to the trunk I kept all my old weapons in. Julie finally wiggled out of Brigid's grasp and as she ran toward me I picked up the pistol, turned around, and shot her. Brigid screamed as I lowered the pistol to my side. All I could do was stand there, horror-struck at what I had done. Brigid ran to Julie and cradled her to her breast, sobbing over the child's limp body. I felt like I had hardened into stone…a living statue like Sander Cohen's grotesque creations.

I felt a small hand place itself into mine while someone pulled the pistol out of my grasp. I looked down and saw Barbara's tear-stained face looking into mine. "I'll do better, I promise" she whispered. It broke my heart. I fell to my knees, gathering her into my arms, apologizing over and over again. I felt the other girls come to me. Some put their arms around me; others sat on the floor next to me and leaned their heads on me. Finally, Brigid came and put her arms around us all. We all cried together, finally…we cried for what we had been through. We cried for how far we still had to go. We cried for what I had done to poor Julie. It took all of us nearly a year, but we finally cried for Rapture.

**[~]**

Christ it's been a long three months since Julie died. I've spent most of it under hypnosis. Good thing is Brigid thinks she's figured out all of my trigger phrases and what they do. Now all we have to do is break the conditioning…which has been pretty damn hard so far. I'll think she's broken one and then next thing I know I'm standing with a gun in my hand (unloaded now…since Julie…) pointed at one of the girls. Or I'll end up in the hospital because my heart's stopped or something. All in all there are three hundred trigger phrases. Gonna be a long year.

We also discovered, after the third trip to the hospital, that I had three hundred poison-filled sacs under the surface of my skin. Tiny but deadly. Interesting thing is the doc who found them turned out to be an ex-pat from Rapture: EVE free and ADAM free. He'd gotten out just before Ryan had started really watching Bathysphere travel for the smugglers. Said he had worked with Dr. Steinman before Steinman went loopy. Apparently, Fontaine had asked Steinman to do the poison thing on a bunch of people. Just another form of control, of course. So when the doc saw the job done to me he wasn't surprised. Knew exactly what to do to deal with the problem.

So we learned from this Doctor Torbek that the surface doesn't know thing one about what went on in Rapture…which is good because it means the Splicers are still trapped down there. It's also kind of unsettling though…makes you wonder if it all really happened. Especially since shit I knew was real a year and a half ago turned out to be fake.

Brigid decided we're going to celebrate Christmas this year. I have no idea what to get her or the girls.

**[~]**

This might be in bad taste, but I got the girls teddy bears. Each one was different, unlike the teddy bears they hid ADAM and EVE in for me when we were still in Rapture…unlike the bears I saw in the Little Sister conditioning building. They loved them.

I got Brigid a brand new tape recorder. She's been using her old Accu-Vox ever since we got out and it's been breaking down a lot lately.

They all got me some new clothes and a television set. I never turn the television on. I can't bring myself to tell them, but all it does is remind me of Ryan and his propaganda. I'd much rather read or lay on the beach than watch someone else's propaganda.

We've broken all of my conditioning so I can be useful again. I can teach the girls again, and play with them again. It's been a really hard six months, but these sweet kids have helped me get through it. I love them all like they were my own.

I didn't tell her, but I got Brigid another gift for Christmas this year. I forgave her. I've carried a lot of anger toward her ever since we escaped. I thought she was twisted…and for a long time she was. But I listened to all of her audio-diaries from Rapture while she and the kids were out at the beach one day, and I heard the change in her from hard-hearted Nazi scientist to gentle mother-figure. Since that day I've watched her face and the lines of her body. I can see, now, the weight of the burden she carries. It may not happen often, but sometimes the bad guys do have a change of heart. Sometimes they do become the good guys. She became the good guy.

It's been two years now. My conditioning has been broken. The girls' conditioning has been broken. The girls will be ready to go to school in a few months. Brigid finally seems to be relaxing…acting more like a mom, I guess, and less like a doctor.

I love her.

I suppose it could be Stockholm syndrome. I prefer to think it's love. After everything that's happened…wouldn't you?

_**END**_


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